Ronnie shook her head, refusing to listen to what Jack was saying. How could he do this? She'd wanted to go to Joel's, not here. She hadn't wanted to come here. Her chest tightened, restricting her breathing until she was gasping for air.
"Ron?" Jack panicked at the sight of her doubling over for breath, he unbuckled his seat belt and put his hand on her back. "It's okay, just deep breaths, deep breaths. That's it, that's it," he said as she began to calm down and breathe normally once again. Maybe it's too soon? I shouldn't have brought her here. It's too soon – she can't handle it.
"I can't do this, Jack. I can't," Ronnie's voice trembled with a mixture of terror and pain.
"You can, Ron. You have to."
She shook her head as the tears fell freely from her eyes. "No. No."
"I'm here, Ronnie. I'm right here and I'll be by your side every step of the way. But you have to see her. You have to say goodbye." Jack placed a hand on the back of Ronnie's neck, trying to make her look at him and soothe her at the same time.
"I don't want to . . ." Ronnie whispered; the strength that had resided within her, the one that got her through every day without her daughter for the past nineteen year – it had gone the moment Danielle's heart had stopped beating. She couldn't do it anymore, she couldn't paint on the smile and go through the motions of another day; she didn't have it in her to do that anymore.
Jack looked at her, wanting more than anything to take away everything that she was feeling; the heartache and the betrayal, he wished he could put his hands over her heart and heal it, but no amount of wishing could ever make that possible.
"You have to, Ronnie," he replied, his voice low and gentle, but he may as well have slapped her across the face.
"It hurts," she confessed, closing her eyes and trying to block out where she was and everything around her. "It hurts so much, Jack." A stream of crystal droplets slid out from beneath her closed lids, trickling down her cheeks. "It hurts to breathe."
Ronnie felt her body shudder as the grief tore out from her chest, escaping from her open mouth as wails. Jack pulled her into him, rocking her slightly, his fingers running through her hair. It was as though he could hear the shattered pieces of her heart groaning in agony for her lost daughter; the daughter she never had the chance to know. Jack remembered how he had felt when he'd heard that Amy might not make it; he'd not even seen the baby and it had terrified him – scared him so much he had needed to know whether she was his or not. He'd only ever been that petrified one time before; at Penny's bedside. But Ronnie's pain was a thousand times worse than anything he had experienced.
"You need to do this, Ronnie. You need to say goodbye."
"I don't want to."
"You need to."
" . . . I'm scared."